The skies bled red over the Jian Clan estate.
On the day Jian Yun was meant to awaken his spirit root, lightning forked across the heavens, as if the heavens themselves were weeping for what was to come.
"Step forward, Jian Yun."
He did, swallowing the tight knot of emotion in his throat. His father wasn't here. Neither was his mother. Only the elders stood in a cold semicircle around the altar stone. And among them, Jian Wuxie—his cousin—smirked with eyes full of mockery.
Jian Yun knelt, placing his palm against the Awakening Stone. The marble trembled under his touch, glowing faintly with golden light… until it flickered, stuttered—and died.
A silence fell.
Then laughter erupted.
"A broken root! He doesn't even qualify for Qi Gathering!"
"Heh… and here I thought the 'genius' would shake the heavens."
"Throw him out. We don't need trash embarrassing our name."
Jian Yun's breath hitched. He blinked, tried again—pushed his soul, his blood, his will into the stone.
Nothing.
The Awakening Stone remained cold and grey.
"No… this isn't right," he whispered.
"It's perfectly right," Wuxie said, stepping forward, tone syrup-sweet. "You just weren't fated for greatness, cousin."
Jian Yun's eyes snapped up. "You… what did you do?"
Wuxie leaned in, lips close to his ear. "I sealed your root last night while you slept. That tea you always trust so much? It carried a gift from our new master."
Jian Yun's heart stopped.
Wuxie smiled wider. "The Dao of Chaos is forbidden in this land. But it lives in me now… and you? You're just the first sacrifice."
A thunderclap split the air. The skies grew darker still.
The Patriarch, sitting above them all, didn't move. His silence was an answer in itself.
No one was going to help him.
They cast him out that night.
Beaten, broken, stripped of his clan robes, Jian Yun was dumped at the edge of the Howling Abyss—a bottomless chasm said to be a crack in the world itself.
Wuxie stood above him one last time, voice calm.
"Let this be a mercy, cousin. It's better than dying by the sect's hand. After all, traitors to heaven don't get to live."
With a single push, Jian Yun plummeted.
The wind screamed in his ears. Darkness swallowed him whole. And as the world faded, his heart broke—not from the fall, but from the betrayal of blood.
He didn't know how long he drifted.
There was no light, no time, no end.
Only pain.
His body shattered, his soul frayed, his will… flickering.
Until something moved in the void.
A pulse.
A heartbeat.
Thum.
Thum.
"So this is the one who touched the stone…"
A voice echoed in his mind, ancient and layered—like ten thousand whispers speaking at once.
"So broken… yet so perfect."
Jian Yun's eyes snapped open, though they saw nothing. "What… are you?"
"I am what the heavens fear. What chaos remembers. I am the root of rebellion… and you…"
A black lotus bloomed before him in the dark.
"You are now my vessel."
Pain lanced through his body—pure, soul-burning agony. Symbols older than language carved themselves into his bones. His veins lit up like rivers of fire. His core, once silent and sealed, roared with awakening.
[Heaven-Tier Chaos System Activated.]Binding host: Jian Yun.Initializing Core Protocols…Establishing First Path: Devour and Evolve.
Jian Yun screamed.
And when the darkness finally broke, he was lying at the edge of the abyss once more—broken, bloody, but alive.
Above him, the stars flickered strangely… as if bowing to something that should not exist.
Jian Yun rose to his feet slowly.
His robes were torn, his face bruised, but his eyes…
They burned with silver fire.
He opened his palm—and in it, a petal of the black lotus shimmered, pulsing with chaotic energy.
He heard the system's voice again, colder now.
Mission: Consume 100 Qi Beasts to begin cultivation path.Reward: Chaos Meridian Unseal + Forbidden Technique [Soul Rend Palm]Failure: Death.
Jian Yun laughed—low, bitter, and hungry.
"Then let them come."
From trash to traitor. From traitor to chaos-born.
The world would regret the day it threw him away.